rock

The SXSW venue called Hotel Vegas was the home for dozens of excellent garage rock bands, most made up of youngsters in search of some exposure and a good writeup or two. In the midst of it all, this group of fifty-somethings blew everyone else away with their pop-punk jamming. Members of other bands on the night’s bill stood stageside and rocked approvingly. Protex formed in Ireland in 1977, inspired by a Clash concert credited by many with kickstarting the Irish punk movement. The name, originally Protex Blue, came from a song on the Clash’s UK debut album. The band broke up three years later after modest success and went on with their lives. Thirty years later, a U.S. record company dug up the original album and re-released it, and one YouTube video drew more than 30,000 hits, prompting two original band members to put Protex back together. Their two SXSW gigs were the only ones on their U.S. visit, but judging from the reaction, they should be back.

These five cousins, brothers and family friends rushed their high school graduations last year so they could get on with a rock ’n’ roll career that has already seen them make it to David Letterman and land the opening slot on an Arctic Monkeys tour. For kids just coming of age in 2014, they do a great job of channeling American garage rock circa 1966. The tightly echoed vocals and stinging guitars are the stuff of “Nuggets” era bands. Singer Mario Cuomo (that’s right, Mario Cuomo) is a crazy man live, throwing himself over, under and around the stage. In Austin, Cuomo finished the set’s final song by climbing up a fence surrounding the outdoor venue, crawling on top of a food truck’s roof and dropping down into the street.

The Orwells at the Waterloo Records outdoor stage in Austin.
(Photos by Meri Simon)

City: Columbus, Ohio
http://lydialoveless.com
Already an underground favorite on the alt-country scene, Loveless’s genre-bending new album “Somewhere Else” slides her toward the “alt” side of that spectrum and has earned her huge buzz from Spin, NPR and Rolling Stone, among others. You can still hear the country in her commanding voice, though, as she sings of love, desire and regret in sentiments so raw and honest you’ll almost blush. She played seven shows with her band at SXSW, focusing almost exclusively on her sizzling new material. This album is going to take Loveless to a new level; don’t miss the chance to see her while she’s still playing a tiny club.

Lydia Loveless at the Broken Spoke for the Twangfest party.
(Photos by Meri Simon)

I must’ve been doing something really right, karmically, that is. Not only was I finding great parking spaces everywhere I went, but the email I was staring at was telling me I was part of a very exclusive fraternity:

“Hi – Wanted to let you know that you’ll be on the press list for the Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band show at SXSW. For now, details are confidential and we ask that you refrain from sharing your confirmation as tickets were very limited and unfortunately we have not been able to help everyone.”
Whew, what a relief. Ever since SXSW officials revealed that the Boss would play an Austin gig in addition to making the conference’s keynote address, it had been my major focus. Where will he play and can I get in.

In previous years there had been big name keynoters, plenty of them. Neil Young and Pete Townshend are huge, but not on the current scale of Springsteen. Young and Townshend were able to stroll around Austin, sitting in to play with other bands here and there with a minimum of craziness. But on my first day in Austin, I heard a whispered, “Someone told me Nils Lofgren has been seen in the W Hotel.” And the craziness was on.

Shilpa Ray grew up in a traditional Indian household in New Jersey. Her parents forbade the guitar and tried to steer her away from Western music by schooling her in typical Indian instruments. The result: maybe the first ever harmonium-driven punk-blues band. Ray and her Happy Hookers swept into Austin on rock grooves that would be pretty irresistible on their own, but paired with her urgent, often shrieky vocals, the music was mesmerizing. Her first show of SXSW week was her best, a packed Barbarella club off Sixth Street pulsing and swaying as she did. Her parents might not want to know how her musical education turned out. “They do not know,” she confided to one interviewer, “and you will not tell them. Shhh.”

The Kurt Vile you meet on CD might not be the same Kurt Vile you’ll hear in concert. Not that that’s a bad thing. The Dr. Kurt Jekyll makes often summery electronic folk music that echoes Seger, Springsteen and Petty. The Mr. Kurt Hyde sets his guitars to stun and can cloud the melodies you grew to love in hot mist. But the drone has its charms and Vile added to his already long list of fans at several shows in Austin, including the Rhapsody afternoon party at a sweaty, elbow-to-elbow Club Deville. The supporting Violators add even more guitars. Get to know both Kurt Viles.

My friends always want to know how you can see so many bands in such a short time. And still fit in all the barbecue and Tex-Mex food required in any trip to Austin. So this year I kept a diary of sorts. This is what SXSW feels like, to me. Listed in order, are the 58 sets of music I heard.

Brisket, pork ribs and sausage at Smitty’s in Lockhart, Texas.

TUESDAY: In anticipation of the music starting Tuesday night, 20 or so of my friends and I took a trip 35 miles south to Lockhart, the “Barbecue Capital of Texas,” intent on a barbecue crawl. The town has four joints that all claim top tier status in Texas barbecue. Two of them, Smitty’s and Kreuz’s, stem from a split in what was the pre-eminent barbecue family in the town. Because of that, another place called Black’s is able to claim, one huge billboards as you enter town, “Oldest barbecue restaurant, same family, in town.” Smitty’s looks like it came from an old Western, the “meat room” all brick and wood stained with decades of airborne grease, two fires burning in the corners with the smoke being fanned into the big smoker. Best brisket ever, damn good pork ribs. Want sauce? Not here, just taste the meat. Need a fork? “Your fork’s on the end of your arm.” With brisket like that, whatever you say.

Kickoff party at Hole in the Wall: Me and a bunch of friends helped put together a night of our favorite bands to get the week off to a good start.

1. Bremen Riot: Songwriter Mike Nicolai backed by the great Austin band Grand Champeen.
2. Mighty Deerlick: A Wisconsin band from the 80s that played the very first SXSW 25 years ago.3. Militant Babies: Not familiar with these guys. Most forgettable set of the night.4. Lil Cap n Travis: Had a few false starts getting into this Austin alt-country band’s records, but this was a good set.5. Vulture Whale: Birmingham, Alabama, outfit with great pop sensibilities and a Southern rock band’s work ethic.6. Grand Champeen: These guys never disappoint. Energetic poppy rock that wouldn’t feel out of place next to Soul Asylum or the Replacements. Aside from their two trips West in the last 10 years, SXSW is the only chance I ever get to see Champeen and it’s always a treat.7. Glossary: Great band from Murfreesboro, Tenn. Kinda like Thin Lizzy crossed with The Band.

WEDNESDAY: Hit the trade show. Bigger and better than ever as this is the first year the film, interactive and music trade shows are all combined into one. More food and booze out than ever. Made a full round of the place and had 4 beers, tons of chips, mini-sandwiches, heard some good band play, and got a pile of free t-shirts. On to the day shows:Continue Reading →

It’s the 25th anniversary of South by Southwest. This is the year that the newer Interactive part of the fest became the biggest part of the event, attracting more official attendees than the film or music portions. And the film fest attracted more name actors and directors than ever. But to me it’s still all about the music. And beyond the high-profile big-venue appearances here by Foo Fighters, Duran Duran, the Strokes and Kanye West, I found the best music in the smallest rooms.

Here are some of the groups that caught my attention in the first two days of SXSW. Coming tomorrow, the best of the rest of the week.

Jon Russell and Josiah Johnson of The Head and the Heart at Mellow Johnny’s Bike Shop, Austin home for radio broadcasts for Seattle radio station KEXP.

The Head and the Heart
Hometown: Seattle, Wash.Listen here
In a festival absolutely dominated by the electric guitar, the Head and the Heart joyously countered with the instrument of their choosing: the human voice. This Seattle quintet’s three-part harmonies and infectious sing-along choruses are what lifts its show-tunesy Americana above the fray. The members found each other at an open mic, released their own album and got on the NPR buzz-wagon before being discovered by indie super-label Sub Pop. On the road to Austin, they got a chance to share stages with the likes of the Decemberists and Dr. Dog and they already have the onstage sureness of a headlining veteran.

Daniel Blumberg of Yuck in another KEXP broadcast show at Mellow Johnny’s.

Yuck
Hometown: London, England Listen here
Every SXSW has a band everyone must see, a notch for all the hipster belts. Where the White Stripes, the Kaiser Chiefs and Vampire Weekend once trod, this year came Yuck. Leaders Daniel Blumberg and Max Bloom, barely 21, are both veterans of this rarified air, having pricked critics’ ears as members of Cajun Dance Party. They’re still so young that the relatively recent bands their music recalls — Sonic Youth, the Pixies, Dinosaur Jr — may have come to them from their parents’ collections. The variety of apparent influences is reflected in the band’s myriad sounds: jangly folk, noisy grime, crunchy indie rock. The potential mob scene to get into their Austin shows was eased a bit by the whopping eight-show schedule they lined up, including four shows on the festival’s first day.Continue Reading →

The voice was still there, strained and squeezed at times, but alive and electric and calling to the crowd from the 70s like out of some long dark tunnel of time.

But there he was: Donald Fagen, lording over the Fender Rhodes center-stage Sunday night at the Masonic Center in SF, leading a 13-piece band through two hours of suburban angst wrapped in jazzy chops and peppered with frenetic horn solos – a song list that a generation can’t get out of its head.

Fagen dug down into the keyboard, then leaned back, looking up at the heavens at that Stevie Wonder-like 45-degree angle, with longtime collaborator/soulmate Walter Becker standing a few feet to his right, the gentleman scholar on lead guitar, punching out more than thirty years of cherished rock licks that brought the audience of about 1,300 to its feet over and over again, as if sitting down was a show of disrespect.

With music driven forward by the strong smart bass lines of Oakland musician Freddie Washington, pumped up with a horn foursome that never let their energy drop an inch below the red-hot top, and laced lovingly with the soulful harmonies of the band’s three singers, Fagen took the crowd down the Memory Lane they had specifically requested on a ticketholders’ Internet survey ( described hilariously by its creators at http://radiodupree.blogspot.com/2009/06/steely-dan-live-2009-internet-request.html)

From 8:30 p.m. sharp, they were off and running, hand-delivering their past delicacies to a room filled with helpless dreamers and pot smoke. From Black Friday to Aja, from Hey Nineteen to Bodhisattva, the music unwound and filled the Masonic, while the two elder statesmen of rock-and-soul worked away, beaming, as if they, like their audience, had forgotten what year it was they were reelin’ in.

The GrooveLily concert cum fundraiser for TheatreWorks has sadly been cancelled due to a family emergency. Hopes are high that the power-pop trio will reschedule but hey, there is no room in my bag for regret, ya know? Contact the company here or call ’em at 650.463.1960 for details.

Please excuse this self-indulgence for a moment, but I’m a HUGE Bruce Springsteen fan. So, naturally, I’ll be stoked this Sunday to see him perform with the E-Street band at Super Bowl XLIII. (The volume on our television will be on at full-blast).

But what songs will he sing? Bruce fans are well aware that the man has an incredibly vast and varied portfolio and it’s anyone’s guess as to which songs he’ll do, what tone he’ll want to strike, etc. etc. Will he do anything from the new album, which comes out Tuesday? Will he stick to the old stuff? (And how old?) Will he want to impart a message? Will the pace be fast? Moderate?

I’m hearing that some Las Vegas joints are making the Bruce set list part of their Super Bowl wager opportunities. So let’s discuss: Which songs do you think Bruce will do? Which ones do you want him to do?

Keep in mind that he’ll only be on stage for roughly 12 minutes or so and he’ll probably only do 3-4 tunes, unless he goes the medley route. Last year, for example, Tom Petty performed four songs: “American Girl,” “I Won’t Back Down,” “Free Fallin'” and “Running Down a Dream.”

So what does The Boss do? A little “Rosalita”? “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out”? “Dancing in the Dark?”

Here’s my guess (not necessarily in this order): “Born to Run,” “Working on a Dream,” “The Rising” and “Prove It All Night.” (Though I’d love to hear him do my personal favorite: “Badlands”).

So, please jump in here Bruce fans and weigh in on this all-important Super Bowl issue.